Trump's Return to Power
Donald Trump’s second term cements his status as a titan in American politics, yet history suggests his true test has only just begun.
Yesterday, for only the second time in American history, Donald J Trump assumed the Presidency of the United States for a non-consecutive term—something that has not happened since Grover Cleveland in 1893.
Mr Trump first assumed the presidency in 2017—eight years ago, in what now feels like an entirely different era, politically and socially. Having bested Hillary Clinton in that election in a contest of who could get more votes against rather than for them, he narrowly eked out an electoral college win and fell short in the popular vote—amounting to only 46 percent.
A majority of the American people, and the political establishment of both parties, felt him to be an aberration who won by fluke. Mr Trump never managed to attain an approval rating above fifty percent. The cosmopolitan class of Washington D.C. insiders felt content to write him off as the president of the “rubes” and “deplorables.” Democrats felt energized and primed to recapture the presidency and usher in an FDR-style political transformation, while the Republican old guard viewed Mr Trump as an unwelcome vagabond who had captured their grand old party in a 1980s Gordon Gekko-style hostile takeover.
Amidst the backdrop of the “Make-America-Great-Again” right-wing populism that Mr Trump vehemently champions, economic leftism in the mold of Bernie Sanders made a resurgence that the United States hadn’t seen since the post-WWII Keynesian consensus, while the Obama-era and California coastal style of identity politics made a new emergence in many of America’s major cities—San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles. Educated and higher-income voters began breaking away from the Republican party in the 2018 midterms, setting the Democrats up for victory in the presidential election two years later.
And when Mr Trump found himself fighting for his political life in the backdrop of the pandemic, inflamed racial tensions and riots stemming from the death of George Floyd, and an economic slump—against a strong candidate in the form of Joe Biden—few in the establishment were willing to stake their fortunes on him. On the contrary, many “heavy hitter” CEOs in tech, finance, and other sectors found themselves drawn to Mr Biden. After all, Mr Trump was an aberration—Mr Biden was predicted, the entire campaign, to be on course for a victory, and the “MAGA” tenure would prove to be a footnote on the return to “normalcy.”
After the chaos of January 6th, two impeachments, a disastrous midterm, legal battles, and even an assassin’s bullet, Donald Trump staged the greatest political comeback in U.S. history. With a commanding victory, he returned to the White House, his upset win leaving no doubt of its consequentiality. Republicans rode his impressive coattails to retain their majority in the House and to recapture the Senate. Mr Trump mended the fence with many business leaders who had seemed so vehemently opposed to him before, having had dinner with Bill Gates, and with Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk all in attendance at his inauguration—with Mr Musk emerging as the president’s most enthusiastic backer—something inconceivable eight years ago.
The Democrats seem to remain in denial about the scale of their defeat. The previous consolation in 2016 had been that Mr Trump had failed to win the popular vote. Having done so this time, the goalposts have shifted, with the newest soothing punditry emerging from MSNBC being that he “failed to attain a majority of the popular vote.” One doubts that piece of trivia was of much comfort to Kamala Harris, who was forced to watch the man who bested her assume the oath from the front row.
Not content to be a mere footnote, as if such relegation to the obscure was possible, Mr Trump emerged content to wield the power of the pen this time—enacting long-standing transformation was something he struggled with in his last term. A slew of executive orders were unleashed: securing the border, designating the Mexican drug cartels as a foreign terrorist entity, scrapping government-mandated diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, limiting new regulations, and repealing red tape regarding energy production.
His economic agenda bears similarity to the traditional “Reaganite” Republican orthodoxy of tax cuts, deregulation, and a revival of domestic energy production. And similarly to the 1980s, corporate America, once hostile and viewing Mr Trump as a braggadocious agitator, now finds itself in commonality with him. Lina Khan’s war on mergers during her tenure as Mr Biden’s head of the FTC likely burned what emerging reconciliation there was between the Democratic party and enterprise and entrepreneurship.
Mr Trump enters his second term at the height of his power. If he were Rome personified, it is presently the reign of Trajan, with the party reshaped in his image and much of the establishment grudgingly falling in line. The liberal resistance, once fierce, has largely faded into indifference, relegated to columnists and anchors for The Guardian and MSNBC—whose influence and reverence wane year-over-year. The biggest tell is the inaugural and post-election honeymoon; Mr Trump has emerged above fifty percent approval rating for the first time ever. But power is fleeting, and the real test begins now.
While executive orders can deliver swift action, history shows that true transformation requires lasting legislative victories. If Mr Trump only governs by executive order, Democrats merely will “wait him out” and undo his entire legacy with an equally powerful stroke of the pen. Thus, the onus is on Mr Trump to work with a fragile House majority and a stubborn Senate—that is aligned with him on taxes and deregulation, yet remains dominated by the “old guard” of the Republican party that proved so thwartful during his first term. His executive actions signal intent, yet legislation is the only means of manifesting one’s will.
Yet whether MAGA and Mr Trump will define American politics—cementing his place as a ‘great man of history’ like Reagan or Roosevelt—or merely serve as a precursor to an even more radical disruption remains uncertain.